Wednesday, December 18, 2013

"We, the Government?"

“We are the government.” I am amazed that so many progressives still seem to really believe that. They love to use that phrase when justifying transfer payments from private individuals through the government to those in need. In other areas of concern, not so much. Have they really thought all this through?

After hearing the phrase, “We are the government,” ad nauseum from progressive types, I feel compelled finally to respond in a more complete manner than to just shake my head in despair.

Forget, for a moment, the dearth of logic implicit in the Rousseauian social “contract” that supposedly binds us all in a collective bond where individual choice on whether or not to make that contract is no choice at all– a glaring disparity from what is taught in Contract Law 101. According to those supporting the concept, we are born with that contract. I suppose if people believe they can be born with original sin, then it is not too far off the logic meter to fall for the social contract myth, too.

But even buying into the social contract concept requires one to believe that an open and fair democratic process takes place by we, the people, so that we can make our collective decisions on the public policies of the day. Of course, in America that is a farce. To run as an independent or “third party” candidate requires one to jump over huge purposefully high hurdles, put there by the ruling elite to keep themselves the ruling elite. Here in Illinois it takes as much as ten times or more signatures to get on the ballot compared to the ruling elite parties. That, in and of itself, nullifies any validity to the claim that “we are the government.”

But disregarding that trumping point, too, one must still take the following into account. If we are the government, then it follows that we must take responsibility for all the decisions made by government, and for all of the ramifications.

Progressives, are you ready to take full responsibility for:

the pitiful conditions of Indian reservations;the disgrace that is public housing;the power we, the government, have given to government to indefinitely detain American citizens;the act of assassinating American citizens;the insurmountable debt laid upon our children, grandchildren and posterity;the swat team raiding of vitamin stores;the swat team raiding of raw milk producers;the swat team raiding by the Dept. of Education on those who have defaulted on their student loans;the illegality of feeding the poor in many municipalities;the swat team murdering of innocents, slaughtered because mistaken identification, wrong address or wrongful entry;the unpunished murdering of the mentally ill by today’s militarized cops; the killing of tens of thousands of innocents in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen via drone attacks;the half million women and children dead in Iraq because of economic sanctions imposed by the US;the killing of eagles because of the use of subsidized windmills;the tasering of children;the bombing of innocents in Dresden, Viet Nam, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I have merely scratched the surface. If one really believes, in the concept that “we are the government” then it naturally follows that any acts by government are the responsibility of “we, the people.” That is quite a cross to bear. Really, an unbearable one. It would be hard to truly take responsibility for all this. I think I would shoot myself. How could any sane, moral person really stand up to this burden? The reality is, one can’t; one doesn’t. The concept of “we, the people, are the government” is a sham. And I believe progressives deep down in their hearts know it. It is only a rhetorical tool to try to convince others and themselves that the government actions that they support are justified by some magical wave of the wand over-ruling the non-aggression principle–as if actions by government are given a special dispensation to the moral law.

But in reality, there are no dispensations to the moral law. If there were, it wouldn’t be moral.It would be sophistry. And that is what it is.

About Me

Kenneth John has been the talk show host of "Freedom Rings" for over fifteen years now. He has been a libertarian activist and writer all of his adult life. You can view some of his writings at www.freedomrings.net. Kenneth is a graduate in economics from the University of Illinois. He is married to his lovely wife, Pam.
Favorite Congressman: Dr. Ron Paul
Favorite canoeing river: Flambeau River in Wisconsin
Favorite Founding fathers: Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams